Protest ART in Visual Form

The recent weeks have brought protest art to the forefront once again. I’m speaking of visual art from cartoonists like Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau to one of the most notable of our time street artist Banksy protest art is everywhere. We see it on posters placards, in memes, on graffiti walls and in art galleries.

The history of protest art is old. Art and artistic expression serve many functions in political protest from unifying a group or helping to broadcast the message of the protest to people who aren’t engaged or informed. It also serves as a visual shorthand to get a large body of thoughts into one organized symbol. The peace sign we recognize was designed by Gerald Holtom as the logo for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament it’s a perfect example of this. One very simple symbol representing a very complex set of ideas in social activism.

So while we will have periods of disruption we will also have protest art. It will continue to do what it does best, make people think, give us hope and spark passion.